General Information

There are many sources available at archives and libraries throughout Hungary. First of all, there are registers. Church registers in Hungary from the beginnings to 1895 have been microfilmed by the Latter Day Saints Church (Mormons). Microfilm copies are stored in three places:

Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. There are local branches
of family history centers (FHC) worldwide, and you can request microfilm reels to them.

Hungarian National Archives, Budapest.

County archives of the actual locations.

There are some pitfalls that one should be aware of before starting off with research:

Austria-Hungary, one of the largest countries of Europe in the 19th
century, was split into many a countries (Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, Romania, the Soviet Union, Poland, Italy etc.) at the end of World War
I (1918).
When talking about people of Hungarian nationality it means that at least 50%
of Hungarians became citizens of countries other than Hungary (Romania, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet
Union, Austria). Political liaisons between the successor states have not always been friendly, and I should say, there are some signs of problems even nowadays, too. This can be a harming factor for resarch outside today's Hungary. As I understand foreigners can hardly get a license to do research in Romanian and Ukrainian archives. (I have not had appointment to do research at them.)

State registers of births, marriages and deaths in Hungary start in 1895. At this date secular records became official, and church records turned out to be optional and of secondary
importance. As said before, microfilms end with 1895. If someone need data
dated after 1895, he/she has to find the way to the local authorities/churches/archives.
But: alas! When you go to the archives, you will face to fact that due to personality measures the research period for birth registers
is limited to current year minus 90 years, that is only until 1908 in 1998,
marriage registers minus 60 years, death registers minus 30 years. Archives store the second series of matricula (registers). Master registers are at local governments' offices. Archives can make photocopies of register pages within the time range just mentioned. Churches can provide extracts for about 3 USD / record (600 HUF). (This information is valid for the Roman Catholic Church.) Extracts from records in
the master registers can be requested either via the Consulates of the Republic Hungary worldwide (approx. 25 USD / copy), or from the secular register offices at local authorities. In the latter case you have to either show up personally at the office, or,
you have to give a written permission to someone on-site to ask for the extracts of records. Your permission should be written in Hungarian and be signed by two witnesses. The commission should include details about your relation to those about whom you request the documents. Extracts in Hungary cost some 5 USDs/person (1000 HUF).

Hereunder you will find links to pages with general overviews, to sites with multiple pages relating to Hungarian genealogy.

An authoritative guide to genealogy research in Hungary. Mr. József Berkes of the Hungarian National Archives has a shortened version of his book on family history research, which will come out in the near future, on the National Archives' website.

Although these pages are compiled to give information on the Danube Swabians (ethnic Germans) genealogy in Hungary, they worth visiting for others, too. They have lots of information of general interest.

A homepage for the researchers in Austria's federal state Burgenland, once western part of Hungary. Many of their newsletter articles cover topics of general Hungarian family history interest, not only Burgenland-specific subjects.

This is a famous Hungarian national encyclopedia from the end of the 19th century. Its 16 volumes have 110,000 entries, almost 10,000 illustrations. Its text-version is downloadable from the Hungarian Electronic Library site. The full version (with images) can be purchased from the publisher of the CD-ROM release.